RosemaryM

My family of husband, self and grown up son spent three months in Britain in April, May and June this year. During this time we drove 7,000 miles and saw lots of places we had not been before and some old favourites. I am not attempting to write a trip report of three months travel but we did have three separate weeks in self skippered boats on three very different canals.

The first was the lovely Monmouthshire and Brecon (Mon and Brec) Canal in Wales. Our narrowboat, Delyth, was great, two double bedrooms, ours with handbasin, a useful bathroom and a good kitchen plus saloon area with TV, CD player and video. The day we took her out from the boatyard near Brecon it snowed! That was what you might call interesting to an Australian family. We aren't used to snow in Spring! It didn't last however, and although it was cold outside, our heaters kept it cosy inside. The Mon and Brec canal is very beautiful, traversing the Brecon Beacons National Park. The mountains in the background and the sheets of wildflowers, primroses, bluebells and daffodils in the foreground made it just magical. It is an easy canal with only one group of locks in the middle and leisurely drifting is quite possible. We all loved it.

The other two canals were in Scotland and could not have been more different.
We picked up our four berth cruiser, Mull of Kintyre II at the boatyard in Inverness and sallied forth on the Caledonian Canal to Banavie Locks just outside of Fort William. This canal joins both sides of Scotland and goes through the Great Glen, crossing Loch Ness, Loch Lochy and Loch OIch. After the constricted narrowness of the Mon and Brec, crossing Loch Ness in particular was like being at sea! Luckily, although we had quite a lot of rain, the lochs were very calm for us. The boat was rather small and the bathroom was (to a family of large people) almost totally unusable. Luckily, British Waterways maintains facilities at the moorings which have showers, toilets and some have laundry facilities so we were able to cope with that. In Scotland, also, British Waterways employs lockkeepers and bridgemasters to manage the locks and swing bridges for you. You just have to throw them a line and I for one did not find that easy! In the end most of them let down a line and said "tie it on here" or I might still be there!
It is another spectacularly beautiful area to boat through, wild and lovely, ending at Banavie in the shadow of Ben Nevis.

The last canal was the Union Canal from the fantastic space age Falkirk Wheel Boat Lift to Edinburgh. We had booked a very new narrowboat but were notified the week before by email that the previous hirers had managed to sink her! So we were offered the option of money back or Willow Grouse, a fifteen year old veteran of the canals. We opted for Willow Grouse and I am glad we did. She was very comfortable and had the best bathroom and galley of any narrow boat I have been on. (A total of three, counting last trip's two weeks on the Llangollen and Shropshire Union Canals)
Going up on the Falkirk Wheel was amazing. It replaced eleven sets of locks and took about 15 minutes, instead of all day. After leaving the wheel, going across an aqueduct and through a tunnel and up two more locks, we got onto the Union Canal, which was refurbished and brought back into service in 2000. Unfortunately it was very overgrown, making it difficult to moor along the banks like you can in Wales and England and necessitating mooring rings or bollards, usually in towns. We prefer the quietness of the country generally. Some of the inhabitants of towns passed by the canal don't seem to have realised that the canal is now a tourist industry and still use it to get rid of refuse, from bicycle parts and shopping trolleys to all sorts of garbage! People never fail to disappoint, sometimes.

However we had a very good time, generally, and it is always interesting to note the differences you can find in three very similar activities.

janis

How wonderful! I haven't done a narrow boat in the UK (have been aboard several) but I have hired cabin cruisers for a couple of river trips - and it is a fabulous way to see the countryside.

Is the Banavie Locks the Neptune's Staircase or another flight? Have been there many times but had not heard them called "Banavie" - but do know that is the name of a village right there near Corpach.

klondike

Thanks for the nice report, Rosemary. What company did you use? You sound overall satisfied with them. We are planning our second self-drive canal trip in France this coming year, and still shopping companies.

RosemaryM

Hi Janis,
Yes, Banavie is the top lock of the Neptune's Staircase, as Corpach is the bottom lock. You are not allowed to take hired cruisers through these locks so it is our turning point. We visited Corpach to see the bottom of the flight when we had our car again. Some of the boats that go through there are fantastic, big yachts heading to Sweden and points north, and the cruise liner Lord of the Glens which does a weekly round trip from Inverness to Tobermory on Mull and is so big that she just fits in the lock. Amazing sight.
Klondike, we used three different companies. In Wales we used Cambrian Cruisers and they were great, even leaving wine in the fridge. In Inverness it was Caley Cruisers which is under the Hoseasons umbrella I think although we dealt directly with them. At Falkirk it was Capercaillie Cruisers, a very small firm but they also handle Alvechurch and Black Prince on the Falkirk Wheel canals.
It is a very relaxing way to see the country, lets you unwind a bit.
Rosemary

sprin2

Thank you for this interesting report. We are hoping to take a narrow boat vacation in a couple of years and this certainly helped with our dreaming about it.

ron

Good report. I love the canals in Britain -- I've done a couple of narrowboat hotel holidays on the Grand Union -- and love the Brecon Beacons. Combining the two is almost too good to be true.